People who feel “upset and distress” about something like this really need to take personal control of their emotional state! University atheist society ordered out of freshers’ fair for displaying ‘blasphemous’ pineapple called Mohammed Reading University Atheist, Humanist and Secularist Society There are about 7 billion people in the world. 1000s of gods are worshipped. 1000s of religions are practised. 1000s of contradictory ideologies are espoused. In a world of global communications, it is probably impossible to say or show anything significant that someone somewhere won’t get upset about. It is obviously impossible to prevent those words and images being . . . . . . . . . . [Read complete post]

(I’m not interested in sport, but I found the non-commentary version of the Olympics 2012 Opening Ceremony fascinating). Any event that has Nimrod, Jerusalem, Tubular Bells, the Industrial Revolution, Sir Tim Berners-Lee, James Bond, Simon Rattle, Rowan Atkinson, Shami Chakrabarti, and the Red Arrows, has my vote! (I quite like “Abide with me”, but perhaps “Band on the run” would have been more appropriate than “Hey Jude”?) You can’t have everything, but perhaps James Dyson and Adele would have made things better. (And if Adele had given birth a few weeks early, at least there would have been plenty of . . . . . . . . . . [Read complete post]

This is also in praise of cartoons about other religions! But a cartoon about Muhammad has been in the news recently: Pharyngula: This is getting ridiculous Butterflies and Wheels: More from the bully boyz BBC: Muhammad cartoon row leads to resignation NSS: Students defend freedom of expression at University College London Here is the cartoon. (I’ll show it to emphasise how silly it is to try to censor something like this!) What is all the fuss about? Some might think that the fuss is because it suggests that Muhammad drinks alcohol in a pub alongside Jesus. But no-one on the . . . . . . . . . . [Read complete post]

I used the term “Militant enlightenment” in a recent post. (I view “enlightenment” as more comprehensive and hence more important than simply “atheism”). Needless to say, it turns out not to be original. Google for “Militant enlightenment”. Oh, well! At least it is an excuse to show this relevant video, one of my YouTube favourites: The … video was retrieved from the Richard Dawkins foundation after a government raid…. … “Militant Atheist” is no longer a figure of speech…. However, this spiritual war will be different. Numbers may be on the side of religion, but Richard Dawkins is using evil . . . . . . . . . . [Read complete post]